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I'd come to you and Mickey for that little extra, unfortunately there is a bloomin' great pond to get over. Had you guys be not too far up the road I would be there asking for your instruction please......
I have seen the stuff you guys get up to, when I was in the Philippines in 1970 and I believe every word you say, sliced, diced and roasted......
At present I carry a Tanbo, well actually it's an old jo that broke when I threw someone with it (it is well hidden at the back of my cab seat)
The cab has a metal and toughened glass barrier just like the older style London cab. It's there just in case some one is carrying, one never knows these days!!
I prefer to even up the odds...... The threat of knife crime is on the increase here so I take no chances. I always carry minimum cash for change, so if they want that I'll give it to them in more ways than one.... As you know cabbies are at great risk and are very vulnerable. It's more likely that those carrying have no real skill, but that doesn't mean they could get lucky..... Why take chances....?
Preparation and awareness is safety also sizing up the odds quickly.
It just amazes me that so many cabbies do not take that precaution, when I hear about really bad assaults I think to myself, if you knew or felt they were iffy? Why the bloody hell take them? I always go by my gut instinct, and so far it has served me well.... No cabbie worth his salt is that naive, if they are, they should not be doing the job.
You guys take care out there....

Tony, the last time I was sent over the pond for work I ended up in Eastern Europe for a bit. My wife has an uncle over in the UK, and I have some guys in Lightning Scientific Arnis that I have talked with over the years and with whom I would love to meet up with and do some cross-training (one is a "copper" and really good stick fighting man). The wife and I were planning on going over to see her uncle awhile back, but, with four active kids (the oldest 11 years old), my work, and other issues, it is not happening for awhile. If I do get over for work (which is always a possibility), I will definitely look you up and we can train a bit. Since I never could get the hang of driving on the side of the road you Brits seem to favor, I'd need a good cabbie to drive me around anyway, that is if I did not want to drive a rental car into somebody's new Jag or Bentley

If you or Henry Ellis ever make it to Northeastern Ohio, look me up. I always have extra room in the house. It is a big rambling place filled with kids, dogs, and cats, (and a gun safe full of blades and other sundry devices).

Decimate was originally a military term and referred to discipline within a Roman legion. It was a serious punishment in which ten percent of the legion was executed in punishment for the failure of the legion. It has been used in a martial context generally in reference to casualties inflicted upon an enemy force. To decimate an enemy force was to kill or incapacitate ten per cent of the force. The term is often confused with devastate.

Within the realm of knife fighting, I have not seen the term used. However, I can see it being applicable. How much do your arms weigh? Are they 10% of your body weight or more? The vast majority of Aikidoka that I have trained with, sparred with, or observed keep their arms relatively immobile, pushed out like antennae, when they are in their "ready" stance. Filipino martial arts practitioners do not do this. The arms are mostly in motion, because they are targets (one of the primary targets during the initial entry against the opponent) for the blade. I do not associate or train with Mr. Harden, but I have been told that he likes khukuris. I have a few of these knives, though, for big knives I generally prefer a fighting bowie. In recent tests of a pair of Cold Steel Bowies (a San Mai III Laredo Bowie and San Mai III TrailMaster) that I conducted for a magazine article, I performed multiple cuts per second with these big blades, severing huge pieces off of my cutting media. WIth a bit of training, this is not difficult to do at all, even while conducting footwork and using the off hand to deflect, distract, hit, parry, bridge, or trap. There is no warning. There is no windup. There is no telltale twitch of the shoulder muscle so prevalent when most people attempt to initiate a cut. There is simply a snap down and a snap up, and, in the blink of an eye, two arms are laying on the floor severed at or near the elbow. If the arms do not weigh ten percent of the total weight of your body, I am sure that other pieces can pretty much be severed at will until the desired weight is reached. Yes you can move and defend, but, against someone skilled in the use of the blade, the smart money is going to be betting on twitchy little bits of you laying on the floor rather than a spectacular disarm and throw of the "disgusting blade wielding thug."

Philippines Manila 1970: Royal Naval service.......Ashore in a not so friendly neighbourhood? Hence the fact that we took bloody great big steps in the opposite direction at very high speed, in fact so fast that ones feet were getting ahead of themselves, I can testify to that kind of skill even though it was a long time ago. I wouldn't even attempt the thought now....
One has to see it to believe it.....

Tony, the last time I was sent over the pond for work I ended up in Eastern Europe for a bit. My wife has an uncle over in the UK, and I have some guys in Lightning Scientific Arnis that I have talked with over the years and with whom I would love to meet up with and do some cross-training (one is a "copper" and really good stick fighting man). The wife and I were planning on going over to see her uncle awhile back, but, with four active kids (the oldest 11 years old), my work, and other issues, it is not happening for awhile. If I do get over for work (which is always a possibility), I will definitely look you up and we can train a bit. Since I never could get the hang of driving on the side of the road you Brits seem to favor, I'd need a good cabbie to drive me around anyway, that is if I did not want to drive a rental car into somebody's new Jag or Bentley

If you or Henry Ellis ever make it to Northeastern Ohio, look me up. I always have extra room in the house. It is a big rambling place filled with kids, dogs, and cats, (and a gun safe full of blades and other sundry devices).

Take care and keep training hard,

Jon

Now there's a possiblity? I'd love to become a skilled butcher as my uncle was one and quite good with his knives, not in the martial sense of course.....
I was wondering what I could do for a holiday next year? Know what Jon? I might just take you up on that..... I would love to see you guys in action and maybe get some more insight.... I'm doing Tokyo this year due to the kindness of a family's daughter, that we looked after for 4 years, so once I've recovered from that expense, I'll hopefully scrape together some dosh and do a pond hop. Month too long? Or is that hoping for too much? Honest I'm not cheeky.....
Don't mind helping out with the bills.....

I don't know about you but I have met many men who knew more than me. and yes...I trusted them and learned from them, sometimes in areas I did not believe were going to work, and here is a key point: I could not make what they were teaching me work in freestyle fighting (at first) so I simply HAD to trust them in order to move forward. At one point I quit because I could not make it work. I later went back. So the key was indeed, trust.
I'm glad I did because I saved myself from turning into a strength based grappler, and from three different men; from wasting my time in the wrong direction with weapons.

Doesn't sound much different then my story, however the ending is different.

Quote:

Reinvention V stumbling in the dark trying to find better solutions.
This is an interesting dilema I see repeated by all of us; young and old in martial arts. We/ they are convinced that testing leads to a knowledge of what works.

Yes, this is how we learn.

Quote:

Problem is what they are really testing is the limits of what they know and what they can make work. In many respects they are re-inventing the wheel while earnestly looking for solutions that many times have already been dicovered, codified, refined and vetted...through real combat in armed situations by many other men.

Everyone here studies a martial art. Which means that all of us are hoping to gain from the insight of others. However, we can't understand what they are doing, or getting at until we ourselves have those experiences. "Stumbling in the dark" is all any of us can really do, it part of learning. Using your own analogy with Dan Severn v.s. Gracie, Dan didn't know what he didn't know until he experienced it. This is what I was getting at with "trust", Dan Severn trusted that he knew most of what grappling was about until he experienced Gracie.

Now we could go on all day about this, but basically, it's up to the person to find for themselves what they want to do. The OP could have trusted what his Aikido teacher told him, and just believed that Aikido worked well at disarming. He did not, so he asked others. As one of the "others" who were generally asked, I said:

Quote:

Chris Hein wrote:

Aikido contains all of the tools you'll ever need to take something out of some ones hand. Ikkyo nikyo, sankyo, yonkyo, gokyo, rokyo, and kotegaeshi are the very foundation of disarms. They are universal to all weapon taking systems, although they have different names in different systems.

Now using them in a high pressure situation is another story. Aikido as a system provides the information you need, however you must train in high stress, unknown, freeform situations in order to learn to use them. This is however, true of any system.

Now back to you:

Quote:

I propose that
a. They could have saved a shitload of time
b. They could have jumped light years ahead with new experimentation based on superior information leading to more sound conclusions from their very real future experimentation.
People do like to forge their own way through the weeds....
Instead of taking a well worn path
Oh well..

I think we both agree with "a", however I would add the caveat, even with the knowledge gained from others, you must experience it yourself.

Now with "b", that is only true if the information was good, we don't know if the information is good without experimentation. If you practice with bad information for many years, you won't get very far.

"people do like to forge their own path" this is your way as well as mine. You are blazing your own trails all the time. It's not the path I would take, but best of luck to you.

Quote:

Well, I am quite sure from our discussions in the past, that our experiences in training and learning are from very different sources of information.

I think that might be a fair conclusion.

Quote:

But, interestingly, I have not gleaned the same results and opinions as you, and yet oddly enough we are both going at it with and without armor right?
So how do you explain our different results and opinions if all testing is supposed to arrive at the same conclusions.... of what works?
Dan

I'm scratching my head over this one myself there Dan. Doesn't seem right does it...

Tony, the last time I was sent over the pond for work I ended up in Eastern Europe for a bit. My wife has an uncle over in the UK, and I have some guys in Lightning Scientific Arnis that I have talked with over the years and with whom I would love to meet up with and do some cross-training (one is a "copper" and really good stick fighting man). The wife and I were planning on going over to see her uncle awhile back, but, with four active kids (the oldest 11 years old), my work, and other issues, it is not happening for awhile. If I do get over for work (which is always a possibility), I will definitely look you up and we can train a bit. Since I never could get the hang of driving on the side of the road you Brits seem to favor, I'd need a good cabbie to drive me around anyway, that is if I did not want to drive a rental car into somebody's new Jag or Bentley

If you or Henry Ellis ever make it to Northeastern Ohio, look me up. I always have extra room in the house. It is a big rambling place filled with kids, dogs, and cats, (and a gun safe full of blades and other sundry devices).

Take care and keep training hard,

Jon

A second thought Jon, cabs can be quite expensive especially at night for example it costs:
£3.80 FOR THE FIRST MILE AND £2.00 FOR EACH SUBSEQUENT MILE.!! Day time, After 23:00 hrs till 06:00 hrs add half again!!
So belting up the back of a Bentley , Roller or Jag could work out cheaper!!
As for driving on the left apparently the story goes that is how one came to pass other people on horse back, bearing in mind your meat cleaver was worn on the left..... Maybe that's why the Japanese also drive on the left too, many things in common....

William,
I'd say there is a pretty fair chance of that. I didn't know about this seminar till right now. Kind of steep for one day, but it should be fun.

James can offer you the same thing that you can find with myself and others like me; koryu principles applied to modern combatives. James's are more in a military/LEO format but it's all good.
As I have said in the past-information is not all the same. There are some extremely valuable lessons to be learned from koryu. And for those that take them from kata to freestyle..they prove to be efficient and as deadly as their original intent.
It is unfortunate that you cannot readily see them in kata-as most arts hide their real intent. Its not an excuse or an apology, it is just often times quite surprising (when you gain access) to see what is behind what you publicly see to what the real purpose is/ was. For that reason the more experienced people will hesitate to comment, or at least heavily qualify their opinions of their public omote kata.
Cheers
Dan

I do not associate or train with Mr. Harden, but I have been told that he likes khukuris. I have a few of these knives, though,

John
I like Kurki for general all around cutting, camping and field work. NOT for a tactical weapon. For that I would prefer a clip point recurved bowie.

Quote:

for big knives I generally prefer a fighting bowie. In recent tests of a pair of Cold Steel Bowies (a San Mai III Laredo Bowie and San Mai III TrailMaster) that I conducted for a magazine article,

I'm not a fan of factory produced blades. They are not capable of equaling a first class hand forged blade for many reasons. I knew and spoke with the consulting smith behind the cold steel effort and the "story behind the story" with the alleged proprietary steel and so on. It was as good an effort you can get from a factory knife-but it is still a factory produce blade.
My knives are hand forged and tempered (by me) with four different heat treat and tempered zones; Hard edge, slightly less in the point, spring tempered spine and ductile tang. Thus you can pry and puncture and yet hold and edge very well. Most any competent smith can produce the same product.
Cheers
Dan

On blades fwiw... Factory stuff has its limits to be sure. They also have their uses. They can be reasonably durable, tough and useful as tools.

But if you want a blade that performs above and beyond in all categories there really is no other choice than a properly made blade from a good smith. I have some very expensive kitchen knives that I use most of the time. And then there are the two knives I have made by Japanese swordsmiths. One I bought, the other a gift from the smith. Both require a bit of care (no stainless here), but both take a remarkable edge and hold that edge better than even the most expensive "fancy" knives I own.

There is a difference.

If I were worried about a blade that was going to be to protect my life I have no question I'd be makin' calls to some friends to have something made just for me...

That said I've got a piece that a friend of mine bought off a Gurkha guard who was working at Saddam Hussein's former residence soon after Baghdad fell. It looks like it was quickly made. But that thing is sharp, has heft, and would do some serious damage. That inside curve makes for serious nastiness...

Now there's a possiblity? I'd love to become a skilled butcher as my uncle was one and quite good with his knives, not in the martial sense of course.....
I was wondering what I could do for a holiday next year? Know what Jon? I might just take you up on that..... I would love to see you guys in action and maybe get some more insight.... I'm doing Tokyo this year due to the kindness of a family's daughter, that we looked after for 4 years, so once I've recovered from that expense, I'll hopefully scrape together some dosh and do a pond hop. Month too long? Or is that hoping for too much? Honest I'm not cheeky.....
Don't mind helping out with the bills.....

Tony,

If you can make it across the pond, I am sure we can work something out. I suggest late spring or summer, as the snow gets a bit thick around here in just about all other seasons .

If you can make it across the pond, I am sure we can work something out. I suggest late spring or summer, as the snow gets a bit thick around here in just about all other seasons .

I'll see what the missus se's she hates anything sharp and cringes when I sharpen up for the Sunday roast, testing to see with my thumb to slice a wee bit of skin, you know the trick something less than a paper cut.... She has this habit of letting them get all get blunt, I think she would like the trip but not the carving up

I'd be interested in hearing more about the armored practice people have done. What venue was used, and what type of gear?

Thanks!
Pat

Hello Pat
Howard knows these people and has watched practice and heard us talk about this other training.
To answer your question;
Kendo bogu (although elbow and knee pads will help)
Weapons: knife, stick, twin sticks, shinai, and bokuto
Even with armor you will still get; broken bones, knockouts, knock downs, major and minor bruising and hard to describe; long, skin-fold impact cuts. We had one fellow with what looked like a razor cut across his forehead but it was done with a wooden tanto (no helmut that day).
What we have tracked is that the bruising tends to lesson over time and even lower level people start to "turn on" and think through the aggression and pain to gain a domineering and controlling mindset that starts to control the action through the refinement of retained relaxation, delivery of power with no wind-up, retained mental focus and control of adreline rush without stress induced loss, and an accelerated sense of timing and positioning.
If you check, I am sure you will find others that do similar work, no doubt from different approaches and their own blending of various principles.
Cheers
Dan

Hello Pat
Howard knows these people and has watched practice and heard us talk about this other training.
To answer your question;
Kendo bogu (although elbow and knee pads will help)
Weapons: knife, stick, twin sticks, shinai, and bokuto
Even with armor you will still get; broken bones, knockouts, knock downs, major and minor bruising and hard to describe; long, skin-fold impact cuts. We had one fellow with what looked like a razor cut across his forehead but it was done with a wooden tanto (no helmut that day).
What we have tracked is that the bruising tends to lesson over time and even lower level people start to "turn on" and think through the aggression and pain to gain a domineering and controlling mindset that starts to control the action through the refinement of retained relaxation, delivery of power with no wind-up, retained mental focus and control of adreline rush without stress induced loss, and an accelerated sense of timing and positioning.
If you check, I am sure you will find others that do similar work, no doubt from different approaches and their own blending of various principles.
Cheers
Dan

On blades fwiw... Factory stuff has its limits to be sure. They also have their uses. They can be reasonably durable, tough and useful as tools.

But if you want a blade that performs above and beyond in all categories there really is no other choice than a properly made blade from a good smith. I have some very expensive kitchen knives that I use most of the time. And then there are the two knives I have made by Japanese swordsmiths. One I bought, the other a gift from the smith. Both require a bit of care (no stainless here), but both take a remarkable edge and hold that edge better than even the most expensive "fancy" knives I own.

There is a difference.

If I were worried about a blade that was going to be to protect my life I have no question I'd be makin' calls to some friends to have something made just for me...

That said I've got a piece that a friend of mine bought off a Gurkha guard who was working at Saddam Hussein's former residence soon after Baghdad fell. It looks like it was quickly made. But that thing is sharp, has heft, and would do some serious damage. That inside curve makes for serious nastiness...

A lot of the military folks who routinely work overseas interfacing with foreign troops will not carry expensive knives. If you cross borders, they often end up in the possession of some customs official. Many developing countries have traditions in which you are obligated to give something to someone who overtly admires it. So guys got in the habit of leaving their really expensive Randalls at home and carrying solid quality benchmade knives that didn't make them cry if they ended up with new ownership.

Do you think the concept of centerline doesn't play a HUGE role in aikido?

I think it is well past time that we start separating training methodologies from the content of an art.

For our own organization of thought, it is high time we are clear about what we want to know.

Technical syllabus is one thing, I don't believe FMA have anything "over" Aikido in this area.

Training methodologies are another thing. This would involve sparring, resistance drills etc. Some FMA have a major advantage here over most Aikido. The dog brothers are a good example of this.

Experience is another thing. People who have been in real life and death knife fights. This kind of experience is fleeting. First there are few people who have been in a life and death struggle over a knife. Second, most people who have didn't gather that much information from the exchange. That is to say, the one or two encounters didn't give them huge amounts of (non-personal) information over people who haven't been in a knife fight.

When training with an experienced person, it's important to remember they can only give you some insights, they cannot give you their experience. This can be seen time and again in sport martial arts. The best competitors don't necessarily make good teachers, and will often have a stable of students who are not great competitors.

Knife fighting is extremely dangerous, so very few would choose, or have the opportunity to be in many life and death exchanges. With the few that have, there is no guarantee that they can pass along any information that will help you.

Sparring, is as close as most of us will ever get (it's also as close as we want to get). Sparring can tell us what technical syllabus work well in sparring. But it's important to remember that sparring is not knife fighting.